Help is organized in the following sections.
Euchre is a four player partnership game played with a deck of 24 playing cards. The 24 card deck consists of the 9, 10, J, Q, K, A of each suit from a standard deck of playing cards. The play is broken down into hands. Hands are played until the game is over. You form a team with the player across from you and accumulate points from each hand played. The first team to reach 10 points wins the game.
Each hand consists of four stages: dealing, bidding, playing, and scoring.
At the start of the game the dealer is chosen randomly. From then on, the deal rotates clockwise until the game ends. Each player is dealt 5 cards, the remaining 4 cards are dealt to a pile in the center called the kitty. The top kitty card is turned face up.
The bidding determines the trump suit for the hand. It begins with the player to the left of the dealer and rotates clockwise until the trump suit is determined or the hand is passed out. The bidding may consist of up to two rounds.
During the first round of bidding, the suit of the face up card is offered as the trump suit. Each player may
If a player chooses accept (or accept and play alone) the trump suit is determined and the bidding is over. The face up card is now taken by the dealer and the dealer must place one card (face down) back into the kitty.
If a player chooses to pass, then the next player clockwise is given the choice to accept, accept and play alone, or pass. This continues until the trump suit is determined or the dealer passes. Once the dealer has passed, the second round of bidding begins.
At the start of the second round of bidding, the face up card is turned face down.
Next, beginning with the player to the left of the dealer each player is given the option to name a suit as trump. However, the suit cannot be that of the face up card from the first round. In addition to naming a suit, the player has the option of playing alone. A player may also choose to pass and the bid moves clockwise to the next player.
Once the trump suit is determined, play begins. If no player names a trump suit (all players choose to pass), the hand declared passed out and another hand is dealt.
The play consists of 5 tricks. Each trick consists of 4 cards, 1 card from each player. For each trick, there is a leader, a suit led, and a winner. The leader is the player who played the first card. The suit led is the suit of the card played by the leader. The winner of the trick is determined by the best card played of the suit led, however, if a trump was played on the trick, then the winner is the best trump card played.
The player to the left of the dealer makes the first lead and may lead any card from his hand. Play continues clockwise to the left with each player playing a card in turn. Players must play the suit led if they have it otherwise, they may play any card from their hand.
After each player has played a card on the trick, the winning player takes the trick and places it aside until the scoring stage. This player is the leader of the next trick. The play stage continues until players have no cards left in their hands.
The best card in a given suit is determined by the rank of the card. Here are the card rankings in increasing order for the non-trump suits.
9, T, J, Q, K, and A.
The trump suit is special. The jack of the trump suit (called the "right bower") becomes the highest trump. The jack of the same color suit as the trump suit (called the "left bower") becomes the second highest trump.
For example, if spades is the trump suit, the jack of clubs becomes a card of the trump suit and the following rankings apply.
9♠, T♠, Q♠, K♠, A♠ J♣, and J♠.
After the hand has been played out, the number of tricks taken by each team determines the score for the hand.
After the scores for the hand are determined, the hand scores are added to the total game scores. The game ends when a team reaches 10 points.
There are many helpful web sites discussing Euchre. Here are a few we like.
NeuralPlay Euchre offers many features to help you learn and improve your play. These features may be enabled, disabled, and/or adjusted in settings. The features include the following.
NeuralPlay computer players offer 6 levels of play. Play at level 1 is reasonably easy and good for beginners. Play at level 3 should be fun for most players. Play at level 6 will be the most challenging.
The AI bots employ different AI methods depending on the level. Levels 1 and 2 use simple methods to provide an introduction to beginners. We will not describe them in detail here.
Level 3 uses a rule-based AI. The AI consists of rules such as: "In 3rd seat, do not trump partner's high card" and "In 4th seat, play just high enough to take it when an opponent is winning", etc. We find the rules work quite well and can provide good play.
Levels 4+ use Monte Carlo Simulation to determine the best play. Basically, the AI will deal out the unknown cards randomly. The AI will then try each legal play and play the deal to the end to get a result. This is repeated for many deals of the unknown cards. The average result for each legal play is computed and the legal play with the best average result is chosen.
Levels 4+ differ in how many times the unknown cards are dealt out. In general, the more deals the more accurate the simulation. This results in better quality plays. The trade-off is that more deals take more time, play may be slower on level 6 than level 4 depending on the device.
Since levels 4+ do not use rules, you may observe either surprisingly good plays or odd mistakes that may seem not to follow any logical rules. Overall, our tests show that the levels are better than the rule-based level 3. We also find the randomness makes the computer feel a bit more human-like and fun.
If you prefer a more consistent, logical, and predictable partner AI and/or opponent AI, then level 3 may be best.
We are continuing to research improvements and new computer AI algorithms. We continue to update the bots as we develop improved algorithms.
See Settings -> Hand Sorting. You can change the rank order, suit order, and choose to alternate red and black suits.
Go to the Main Screen and choose Menu -> Reset.
These terms are used in bridge games. You are always South and your partner is always North. The terms You and South are used interchangeably.
Claim means you will take the remaining tricks. When your hand is clearly high, you may claim the remaining tricks to speed up play. If the claim is successful (the AI will check), you will receive the remaining tricks and the hand will end.
Please contact us at support@neuralplay.com.